Jerry Brown pledges to ‘rock the boat’ only enough to get state on ‘even keel’

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, center, talks with supporters after campaign event at Roseville Yamaha, in Roseville, Calif., Tuesday, June 29, 2010. Whitman toured the facility and then spoke to a small crowd about jobs in California.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

California State Attorney General Jerry Brown, speaks to the California District Attorneys Association in Monterey, Calif. on Tuesday, June 29, 2010. (AP Photo/Monterey County Herald, Vern Fisher)

MONTEREY — Attorney General Jerry Brown said Tuesday that if voters give him a chance to be governor again, he will appoint justices with a solid track record, kill the first Medfly he meets and rock the boat only “a little bit.”

Speaking to district attorneys from around the state at Monterey’s Marriott Hotel, Brown addressed some of the issues that are bound to haunt him in his race against Republican billionaire Meg Whitman.

Among them: that in his previous stint in the job he appointed way-too-liberal Supreme Court justices such as the late Rose Bird and let the Mediterranean fruit fly infestation get out of hand by delaying spraying.

“Once you serve your time, you learn,” said Brown, who was governor from 1975 to 1983.

“If I see a Medfly I’m going to spray that sucker,” he said, only half-joking.

His speech seemed part of an emerging tactic of the Brown campaign: Admit errors from the past, but do it in a way that combines Brown’s brand of quirky humor with candor.

“For every hair I lost, I gained one brain cell,” he quipped at the annual meeting of the California District Attorneys Association.

The “Rose Bird issue” was brought up by Kern County District Attorney Ed Jagels, a Republican who didn’t think much of Brown’s choices for the state’s high court the first time around.

Jagels asked what kind of justices Brown would appoint if elected in November. “They’re not going to be the kind of judges you might have expected,” Brown assured him. “I’m going to look for seasoned people who have a track record.”

And the man who was Governor Rock the Boat recalled a ’70s conversation with an old legislative hand who was upset about Brown’s not taking a more incremental approach to change.

“There is a lot of wisdom to that,” Brown said. Still, he promised to rock the boat “a little bit, because you got to get it on an even keel.”

Shortly after he finished speaking, the Whitman campaign issued a statement chastising Brown, claiming “he has no plans to shake up the status quo.”

“Our economy is plagued by the philosophy of more spending, more taxes and more regulation in Sacramento, and Jerry Brown thinks there’s wisdom in ‘not rocking the boat,'”‚—‰Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said. “After his 40 years in politics, Californians can’t afford the status quo in Sacramento.”

Whitman was in Roseville on Tuesday morning, telling a small crowd at a Yamaha motorcycle dealership that Brown is a failed politician and that she is the candidate who would grow the private sector and make government more efficient and friendlier to business.

“I know how to balance a budget,” the former eBay CEO said. “I know how to create jobs.”

Whitman called small businesses the “backbone” of California and said they are being hurt by excessive taxation and regulation.

She added that it isn’t often that she speaks in front of a bank of motorcycles. She called it “pretty cool.”

The McClatchy-Tribune news service contributed to this report. Contact Ken McLaughlin at 408-920-5552.

Ken McLaughlin is an editor for the Bay Area News Group. During his four-decade-long career based at The Mercury News he has been a reporter, assistant metro editor, state editor and editorial writer. He’s written extensively about politics, marine science, Asian and Latino affairs, immigration, and race and demographics. Now regional news editor for the organization, he edits the politics and science teams. He also teaches aspiring science writers in the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz. He has a master's in journalism from Stanford University.

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